Character Review: Biv Bodhrick

In this our last series on heroes, we look at the unappreciated but incredibly fun group of characters who form the tank class of Imperial Assault. While tanks are often critiqued for being limited in their damage output, you won't find that to be the case for these gentlemen, and this is particularly true of today's hero, the mighty Biv Bodhrick.

Biv Bodhrick: It's Not Personal, It's Business

Let's sort out two things before we begin: first, on some level and at some point, you will need to spend XP to buy an upgrade that relies on Close and Personal. At the cost of 2 Strain, getting a free melee attack with a Red-Yellow combo and NO surge abilities has debatable utility. While you can spend up to 9 XP on upgrades that don't rely on Close and Personal, you'll eventually need it. So, the big question is: how much do you emphasize Biv's signature skill?
The second thing you'll need to know about Biv is that no matter what weapon you use, Biv SHOULD (dare I say MUST) use his first Surge result to recover Strain. As great as Close and Personal is, Biv gets far more utility out of being able to Strain to reroll an attack die with Deadly Precision. With one of the best starter weapons available to any hero, getting to reroll the Red when it gives you Damage 1 or reroll the Blue when it doesn't give you enough Accuracy (or when it only does Damage 1) is critical to getting the most out of your actions.
With the need to recover Strain for rerolls AND the need to spend 2 Strain to perform Close and Personal, recovering Strain is key to using Biv effectively. Our builds today will keep this in mind and we'll be looking for ways to recover Strain in each of them (though recall we talked about equipment you can buy to manage strain in our post on Verena Talos).

End-Game Weapon #1 – The Melee Approach: Vibro-Knucklers and Repeating Blaster with Vibrobayonet

We've talked about this weapon in many of our posts for good reason: you reliably get Surge results (and you can turn them into good offensive bonuses). For Biv, generating Surge is a must and could be the difference between being able to perform Close and Personal in a given round.
With the Vibrobayonet, you aren't tempted to use your Surge to do Damage during the melee part of Close and Personal, and you're all but guaranteed to do Damage to the target AND apply a Bleed condition. In your follow up attack, you're rolling a Red-Blue and are again not tempted to surge for anything other than recovering Strain.
If you kill the target, not only do you have a good chance of recovering the Strain you used, but you also get to move a bit with Advance. The benefit of the Vibro-Knucklers is that until you get the Vibrobayonet, you don't need to use Close and Personal and you'll still be able to cut through nearby figures. While Close and Personal is good against high-health figures, it's not good against low-health figures. This is where the Vibro-Knucklers shine.
Most of our XP will be dedicated to defense boosts - we are a tank after all. Biv's Trophy Armor is one of the best upgrades in the game, granting +4 Health and a reroll of your defense die. Add in a static Block from Into The Fray and you're one tough nut to crack. But just when you think there's no way you could get stronger, you add in Shake It Off to give you a shot at recovering Strain or removing a harmful condition at the start of your turn.
Perhaps the best thing about this build is that besides the Vibro-Knucklers (though you can use the Armored Gauntlets at Tier 1), you haven't spent any cash. Since you won't be buying armor with your credits, consider picking up the Cybernetic Arm, the Survival Gear, and the Emergency Injector. 

Upgrades to purchase – 10 XP: Advance (1), Shake It Off (1), Into The Fray (2), Vibrobayonet (3), Trophy Armor (3)

End-Game Weapon #2 – Rifle Approach: A280 with Vibrobayonet and Plasma Cell

Alright, let's be honest: Biv should be running around with the world's biggest gun making everything blow up. If we're going to do that, let's find a gun that allows us to take 2 upgrade slots so we can have the Vibrobayonet and something else. Enter the A280.
This list uses Close and Personal to the limit, so Surge is everything. Prior to hitting Tier 2, you can keep your Repeating Blaster (it's good). Thanks to your Vibrobayonet and Plasma Cell, you'll always get a static Pierce 1, no matter which part of Close and Personal you're doing. We've chosen Crushing Blow to supplement the Vibrobayonet, but realize that by giving ourselves something to Surge for in the melee part of Close and Personal, we're not going to be recovering Strain as often. Therefore, this strategy doesn't even try. We've decided with this build that we're going to rest once per turn instead of attacking with our second action.
In this build, we wrap up with one of Biv's 4 XP upgrades (Stay Down) which allows him to perform part of Close and Personal again at the cost of 2 more Strain. Since this doesn't take an action, you can still do 3 attacks in an activation AND REST. With only 9 XP spent, you should have some extra XP to buy odds and ends to flesh out your character (Advance is good, as is the Trophy Armor if you have 12 XP total). In general I don't think Biv's 4 XP upgrades are all that great, but this Stay Down works alright with Crushing Blow (exhaust it during any one of the melee attacks) and the Vibrobayonet (applies to both melee attacks).

Upgrades to purchase – 9 XP: Crushing Blow (2), Vibrobayonet (3), Stay Down (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – The Pistol Approach: 434 Deathhammer with Vibrobayonet

While having a bayonet on the end of a pistol is unconventional to say the least, you can't argue with this one: a static Damage 1 in both parts of Close and Personal, guaranteed 2 Accuracy, and a solid Red-Blue is great. With Crushing Blow, we're relying on doing lots of Damage to the target, while Advance gives us some movement for free. We'll need to rest from time to time, but since you are spending so little on your weapon, pick up some of the equipment we mentioned previously (I'll add the Bacta Pump for this build, maybe even the Reinforced Helmet or Personal Shields for defense pips).
Speaking of defense, we've chosen again the dual pairing of Into The Fray with the Trophy Armor - there's no reason not to take both. Biv Bodhrick should be able to endure the worst punishment with this build and if you're facing low-health figures, you'll be able to chomp right through them with the 434 Deathhammer. Very straight forward and not much else to say.

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Advance (1), Into The Fray (2), Crushing Blow (2), Vibrobayonet (3), Trophy Armor (3)

Biv in the Skirmish Game

If you're looking for a power character, Biv Bodhrick is your man: as one of the most expensive Rebel Heroes you can bring to a skirmish match, his health and defense are fine but not stellar. Where Biv comes into a realm all his own is on offense: with a Red-Yellow-Blue attack pool and the Close and Personal ability, he can perform multiple attacks in a single action (turning up to 2 Surge into Damage) AND he can still move or trigger a Command card special ability (I like Merciless).

One of the best things about Biv is that he's a Hunter-Brawler, which makes him an excellent ally to a Mercenary list with Temporary Alliance OR he can synergize with most Jedi or Wookiees. If you use Saska Teft, you can pick a good Mercenary figure to join you - Shyla Varad is a good choice, though Bossk, Vinto Hreeda, and Jabba the Hutt are excellent alternates.

In our next post, we’ll be delving into the hero with the highest possible health: Onar Koma. What Onar gains in ridiculous health, he pays for with absolutely no defense die. Is he worth it? Find out next time!

IP Class Deck Review: Nemeses

When you think of the antagonists in Star Wars – be they grand organizations like the Galactic Empire, the Separatist Confederacy, or the First Order, or perhaps less-grand organizations like the Hutts of Tatooine or rogue bounty hunters roaming the galaxy for hire – it’s pretty easy to pick iconic characters that you wouldn’t mind having at your beckon call. In Imperial Assault, many missions give you these kinds of heroes for free (either in your starting groups or reserved groups). But what if you could take the villains you like in open groups, instead of only getting them in select missions? If you want to do this, the only reliable way to do it is with the amazing Imperial Class deck: Nemeses.

Nemeses: Picking Your Champion(s)

The Nemeses deck allows you to focus on the one thing that makes an Imperial Player’s life wonderful: the villains of the galaxy. If you play with any other Imperial Class deck, you need to spend your very-rare Influence points to purchase side missions that will give you the Villain as a reward. This not only keeps your Influence from getting you other bonuses, but also requires that you use an Open Groups slot to field them AND the deck does nothing to help you buy that Villain in the mission you want to use them in. It’s a pain.

In this respect more than anything else, Nemeses is fantastic: not only do you get to keep your Influence to buy other things, but you also get to pick two Villain units for use in the mission (automatically getting to add one of these Villains to your hand WITHOUT taking up an Open Groups slot). You can also change which Villains are being used in each mission – changing from very cheap Villains early on to more expensive ones later. The balance to be sought, therefore, is how much you care about Villains – are they a supplement to your overall plan? Or are they the centerpiece of your army? All of our lists today will focus on Villains that you can bring – because you’ll always have Inspirational as one of your upgrades, you’ll want to bring Open Group units that match at least one attribute of the Villain you choose to add to your hand (or any Villains provided by the mission).

One last note: we’re not going to recommend two very good Villains in this post that you could choose to take: the Grand Inquisitor and Greedo. The reason we’re omitting these guys is because you can get the Grand Inquisitor FOR FREE by purchasing Targeted By The Empire or take Greedo FOR FREE by purchasing Hunter For A Fee. These cards allow you to bring non-Villain figures AND several Villains, for a relatively small Influence cost. So - don't use them as your Villain with Nemeses - ADD them to your Villains with Nemeses. Without further ado, let’s look at some lists, shall we?

End-Game Build #1 – Maximizing Team Firepower: Powerful Foes, Inspirational, Fearsome Presence, I’m On The Leader, Punishing Force, Devastating Legion

I’ll start off by saying that this is the only build we’ll be viewing that brings only one of your two Villains to the table. This deck focuses less on bringing Villains to the fight and more on making your team as a whole more dangerous. With cards like Fearsome Presence, you’re rewarded for having expensive figures on the board (such as Villians) in order to spam Strain against the Rebel heroes. This is complemented quite nicely by Devastating Legion – why not also apply a -1 Block or -1 Evade penalty to Rebel figures while you’re attacking them (so long as there’s a Villain around to watch the carnage)? To polish off the general benefits, we’ve taken I’m On The Leader, which is a great way to get static damage when attacking someone healthy – so good.

The capstone of this build, however, is Punishing Force. This card is rare for an Imperial Player and is easily the best card available to the Imperial Player in the Nemeses deck: each time a Rebel finishes activating, this card readies, allowing the next Imperial deployment card to benefit from it (and it allows rerolling any number of attack dice) – perfect for ensuring that your units have the best shot they possibly can of doing LOADS of damage. Like most of the other upgrades, you don’t need Villains around to make this upgrade useful.

Best IP Units:

·         0-0-0 (BT-1 and 0-0-0 Villain Pack) – There are few Villains as cheap as 0-0-0, but he’s not just a cheap unit: if you begin by performing an Invasive Procedure, you can then attack your foe with a Red-Yellow-Green and the ability to surge for Pierce 2 and Recover 2. While 8 health with a Black die isn’t great, it’s not bad either (especially for 4 points). By using Powerful Foes, you can get 0-0-0 for 1 Threat once you hit Threat Level 4. In missions before that, it’ll cost you 2-3 Threat. The downside to running 0-0-0 is that you can only synergize with Droids, so consider pairing him with Probe Droids and Sentry Droids.

·         BT-1 (BT-1 and 0-0-0 Villain Pack) – If you want to pack more firepower than 0-0-0, you can take his counterpart BT-1. With the option of either attacking with a Red-Yellow-Green-Blue attack pool or three attacks with Red/Yellow/Blue and a Green attack die, you can do lots of light damage or a ton of big damage. If you use Powerful Foes with this figure, you can field him for 4 Threat once you hit Threat Level 3 (which is automatically in a short campaign and after the first two missions in a long campaign). BT-1 also has synergies with Droids (recommending Probe Droids again), Heavy Weapons (Heavy Stormtroopers are good), and Hunters (Weequay Pirates are a good bargain), which gives you many choices for Open Groups.

·         Jabba The Hutt (Jabba’s Realm) – For the same cost as BT-1, you can get Jabba the Hutt. We’ve talked about Jabba TON on this blog and for good reason – he’s good. While his inability to surge for damage – for anything actually – is regrettable, you can do excellent damage with his Bully special ability, gain Threat with Plot (invaluable for keeping your reinforcements coming), bolster friendly figures with Financial Incentive), and calling in a strike with a Mercenary figure thanks to Executive Order (best preceded by Financial Incentive unless the Mercenary figure is already Focused). As both a Smuggler and Hunter, he can synergize with many Mercenary figures, but most notably Trandoshan Hunters, Clawdite Shapeshifters, and Weequay Pirates.

·         Captain Terro (Jabba’s Realm) – Captain Terro is one of the most powerful Imperial Villains you’ll be able to purchase with this build. With a free 3 movement points at the start of his activation, he can move a little to re-position himself, use his Flamethrower to do some damage and weaken a few nearby foes, and then perform an attack with a Yellow-Green-Blue (with the ability to get Damage 2 or Pierce 2 on your Surge). For only 7 points, you can get him for 4 Threat once you hit Threat Level 4. Unlike our previous two heroes, you can synergize with Troopers (tons of options there, but my favorite are Riot Troopers and Heavy Stormtroopers) and Creatures (Nexu are decent, though if your Habitat allows, you should get a Wampa instead).

·         Dengar (Return to Hoth) – Dengar stands out as the only character who is flexible in the kinds of harmful conditions he can apply. If Dengar is attacking someone without a harmful condition, he adds a static +1 Surge to his attack results (which joined with his static +2 Accuracy gives him the equivalent of a Blue die when it rolls an Accuracy 2 + Surge 1 face). Being able to turn one surge into Damage 2 and any additional surge into harmful conditions, Dengar can reliably break through a Black die and leave the target reeling. With only 8 Health, he’s quite a bit less resilient than Captain Terro, but not TOO bad for his cost. With only the Hunter keyword, you'll want to pair him with Trandoshan Hunters, Clawdite Shapeshifters, and Weequay Pirates.  

End-Game Build #2 – Big Dang Bosses: Powerful Foes, Inspirational, Fearsome Presence, Ringleader, Leave Them To Me, Indomitable

While you can definitely use Villains to support your other units, sometimes we want our Villains to be the centerpiece of our army. If you read through all of the Nemeses upgrades once, you’ll notice immediately that many of them focus on making your Villains stronger. Two upgrades pair well together: Powerful Foes and Leave Them To Me. While you start with Powerful Foes, Leave Them To Me allows you to take both of the Villains you select during setup – one Imperial and one Mercenary. Both upgrades also have means of getting those Villains deployed with a reduced cost, allowing more expensive Villains to be brought to the fight.

There are two auric upgrades we’ve chosen to take: Ringleader gives your Villain additional movement points at the start of his activation and boosts the strengths of adjacent friendly figures (who wouldn’t want an additional Accuracy and Damage to their attacks?). Fearsome Presence is a bit more difficult to use (as we’ve seen above), but since you can deploy expensive Villains more easily, triggering this ability remains easy as the campaign progresses. We’ve also chosen to boost the defense of our Villains by taking Indomitable – capable of adding a Black die to your Villains whenever they’re attacked, preventing them from receiving harmful conditions, and the ability to spend 1 Threat in order to ready the card when the Villain is attacked again.

Best IP Units:

·         Darth Vader (Core) – If you’re going to be able to deploy someone cheaply, you want it to be Darth Vader – there are some figure who do almost as much damage as he does, but no one reliably resists damage like Vader does. With Indomitable, Vader is all but unstoppable – taking very little damage and dealing loads of damage on offense. At a whopping 18 points, he easily triggers Fearsome Presence and since he’s a melee figure with Brutality, you want him to end adjacent to at least two figures. Given his VERY high cost, you’ll want to pair him with a cheap Mercenary Villain (Greedo or Jabba The Hutt for example), allowing you to focus both Powerful Foes and Leave Them To Me on Vader (it costs a total of 9 Threat to play him at Threat Level 5). Because this is virtually at the end of a long campaign (and is the end of a short campaign), you’ll want to buy Leave Them To Me late in the game, focusing on the other upgrades first. As both a Leader and a Brawler (and an expensive one), you'll want to pair him with Imperial Officers and Gamorrean Guards, though Tusken Raiders are great if your map has at least one desert tile.

·         Emperor Palpatine (Heart of the Empire) – Palpatine comes in at less than half what Vader costs, making him an easy Villain to purchase alongside another decently-high costed Villain (or you can get him with a dirt-cheap Villain and just save a ton of Threat). Using Leave Them To Me isn’t that great with Emperor Palpatine, as you want him to be able to use Emperor and Force Lighting each round if you possibly can (though if you deploy far from the Rebel Heroes, you can do it to save some cash). I recommend using Powerful Foes to deploy him for only 6 Threat at Threat Level 3, which allows you to use Leave Them To Me on another hero (like Maul, who we’ll look at next) OR you just delay on buying Leave Them To Me until late in the campaign and buy Vader with it. With only the Leader trait to synergize with the rest of your team, you're basically limited to Imperial Officers, so pick your open groups based on your other hero (or just bring a lot of IOs).

·         Maul (Heart of the Empire) – Maul is not only one of the most powerful Mercenary Villains they’ve come out with so far, but he’s incredibly good when deployed with Leave Them To Me. If you use this upgrade to deploy him at the start of a mission, he only costs 2 Threat and cannot be defeated until he activates in Round 2 (no matter how much Damage he takes). With Indomitable, he can get a double-Black die to keep him alive even longer (which is good since he can’t recover Damage). As a cheap Brawler, you can pair him with Elite Gamorrean Guards, Royal Guards, or Trandoshan Hunters.

·         IG-88 (Core) – Though more expensive than Maul, you can by him for 5 Threat at Threat Level 3 if you use both Powerful Foes and Leave Them To Me. IG-88 is incredibly good on offense (multiple attacks with any two-die attack pool you want), but lacks a bit in the defense department (though it’s nothing Indomitable can’t fix – two Black dice with a static Block 1 is great). With the ability to recover up to 6 Damage in a given turn (assuming you can shoot twice), you can get a bit more survivability out of him than you can with Maul (though Maul’s higher base health and guaranteed activation each round might tip the scales in the sith's favor). As both a Hunter and a Droid, IG-88 allows you to synergize with Probe Droids and Sentry Droids, as well as Clawdite Shapeshifters and Weequay Pirates.

·         Boba Fett (Twin Shadows) – At 1 point more expensive than IG-88, you can get Boba Fett at Threat Level 3 for 6 Threat, which allows you to use him early in any campaign. With Indomitable giving him two Black dice on defense with a static Block 1 + Evade 1, Boba Fett is great. Unlike the other Villains we’ve looked at so far, Boba Fett benefits from being Mobile, allowing you to place him better for Fearsome Presence than anyone else. On offense, Boba Fett is fantastic – the ability to Recover 2 when you can reduce the damage he takes via Indomitable makes him incredibly good. Finally, Boba Fett is a Hunter - this means Trandoshan Hunters, Clawdite Shapeshifters, and Weequay Pirates are where it's at.

End-Game Build #3 – Flexible Build: Powerful Foes, Inspirational, Prepare The Ambush, Fearsome Presence, Ringleader, Leave Them To Me, Punishing Force

We’ve seen a build that focuses on doing damage to the Rebels as fast as possible with your entire team and we’ve seen one that glorifies your Villains to incredible heights. Now we’re turning our attention to a more flexible build that provides more tactical benefits (often static benefits) to your units. In addition to the standard abilities of Powerful Foes and Inspirational, we’re adding Prepare the Ambush to our deck, allowing us to delay activating a group so we can wait and see where a Rebel hero is going to be before we are forced to move. This is a niche ability and I’ve found it to be only marginally useful – most times, you want to get use out of a deployment card as fast as possible before it dies. However, there are times (usually with E-Web Engineers) where you want to see where a Rebel hero ends up BEFORE you activate one of your groups. Because you’re not allowed to pass in Campaign mode, sometimes you just want one additional turn of information before you activate someone. This ability gives you that (as well as some extra movement for the first group you activate.

In addition, we’ve added Ringleader and Punishing Force, which provide good offensive benefits that are (at least sort of) static. We’ve talked about these a lot (and we’ll talk about them some more), so we’ll move on to the last upgrades: Fearsome Presence and Leave Them To Me. Getting Fearsome Presence to work requires that you have kind of expensive units (or single-figure deployment cards that you keep putting on the board). This can be hard to use effectively, but your goal is to hit at least one figure with it. Using Leave Them To Me enables you to get more expensive figures (Villains or grunts) onto the table, making this card much more effective. It’s best done when the Rebels need to pass through a deployment zone, as you can deploy someone near Rebel figures (or where they’ll be), giving you some extra oomph out of Fearsome Presence without activating the card.

Best IP Units:

·         Agent Blaise (Bespin Gambit) – Agent Blaise is the lowest end of heroes you want to bring, since his cost will just barely be above or at the threat level (necessary for Fearsome Presence). Blaise is pretty straight-forward to use: shoot at someone (and generate 1 Threat when he attacks), perform your Activate Agent special action, and watch the Spy/Trooper unit you deploy do awesome things. Blaise benefits greatly from Punishing Force (to make sure you get at least 1 Surge past the defense results), but don’t EVER use Leave Them To Me with Blaise – you want every activation you can with this guy. Blaise is hard to synergize with, seeing as how he's a Leader (Imperial Officers) and a Spy (ISB Infiltrators).

·         Bossk (Bespin Gambit) – Of all the bounty hunters available in Imperial Assault, Bossk is one of the best – with a static Damage 2 + Accuracy 2, a Red-Green combo, and a static Block on defense, Bossk is a boss (see what I did there?) wherever you put him. What makes him even better, of course, is his ability to heal himself at the end of each round – see our post on To The Limit or more info on this incredible skill. For this Nemeses build, you can get Bossk for 5 Threat at Threat Level 4 or for 4 Threat at Threat Level 5 – which is kind of a lot, to be honest. Bossk is both a Hunter and a Brawler, so any of the previous Hunter/Brawler units we've talked about are fair game (see our last section, since most of those guys were Hunters or Brawlers).

·         General Sorin (Return to Hoth) – Sorin, on offense, isn’t much to look at – he’s basically an Elite Imperial Officer who can’t surge for Accuracy. You don’t take Sorin, however, to fight – you take him to make Droids and Vehicles better. We’ve talked about Sorin already in our post on Advanced Com Systems, and most of what was shared in that post applies here. With Ringleader as an upgrade, you can not only enable friendly figures to attack, but you can also boost their abilities. As great as Sorin is, he only has the Leader trait, so bring along some Imperial Officers and an Elite Imperial Officer to synergize.

·         Kayn Somos (Twin Shadows) – Similar to Sorin, Kayn gives adjacent friendly figures bonuses as well (and we talked about him also in our posts on Advanced Com Systems). Unlike Sorin, Kayn can make adjacent friendly figures Focused when HE attacks (not when THEY attack), which is great if you’re adjacent to figures who don’t surge very reliably. With Ringleader supporting Kayn’s Firing Squad ability, you can allow two friendly figures to interrupt to perform an attack against the same figure with a static Damage 1 + Accuracy 1 added to their attack results. For unit syerngies, I recommend Riot Troopers, Heavy Stormtroopers, and E-Web Engineers, though Stormtroopers are just fine too.

·         General Weiss (Core) – If you want to get the most out of Fearsome Presence, you want a large base. You also get more out of Ringleader if you have a large base. There’s no Villain with a larger base than General Weiss – and with Leave Them To Me and Powerful Foes, you can deploy him for -8 points at Threat Level 4 (making his final deployment cost 8 points, though he starts exhausted). This is a great way to get him out at the start of a side mission when at Threat Level 4 or higher. While the AT-ST starts with a Targeting Computer, Punishing Strike gives General Weiss the same rule (basically). Weiss has Heavy Weapon and Vehicle synergies, so bringing along some Heavy Stormtroopers or Jet Troopers are always welcome (most other vehicles are hard to field).

In our next post, we’ll be turning our attention to one of the Imperial Class decks released in Return to Hoth: Armored Onslaught. This deck rewards the IP for having vehicles in his deck which can not only be REALLY fun for the IP, but also makes for a very different game play than other IP Class decks. Until next time, happy gaming!

Character Review: Shyla Varad

In our previous posts in the “Slasher” series, we’ve looked at Verena Talos and the ability to shoot people at point-blank range and Davith Elso who carves through enemy figures with his Lightsaber. In today’s post, we’ll be looking at the Mandalorian bounty hunter Shyla Varad, who has the ability to use a melee weapon with the grace and elegance that few (if any) can match.

Shyla Varad: Melee vs. Tactical

Shyla has four upgrades available to her that benefit melee weapons: she can do more damage (at the cost of surge) with All-Out Attack, she can reroll an opposing and a friendly die with Proximity Strike, she can gain a free attack (at slightly weaker strength) with Swords Dance, and she can add Cleave 3 to the attack results with Full Sweep. These skills are incredibly powerful and can turn any attack into a powerful move (though all four of these are exhaust skills, so they can only be used once per round). While a straight-forward approach might make these four look more tempting than her other options, Shyla has tactical options too.

Shyla has two equipment pieces that can be used to either do damage to enemies (Remote Detonator) or cause a hostile figure to become Weakened OR a friendly figure to become Hidden (Smoke Bombs), she can gain a free movement point OR recover 1 Strain at the start of her turn (Responsiveness), and she can gain a static Evade – good complement to her Black die – in addition to free movement and extra Endurance (Deadly Grace). These four skills are in no way weaker to their counterparts listed previously and the decision for running Shyla is simply this: when you have eight good choices, which do you choose? To answer this question, we’ll be looking at three exemplar builds: one that focuses on melee, one that focuses on tactical, and one that mixes the two. With no further ado, let’s dig into it.

End-Game Weapon #1 – Cleave Left And Right: Electrostaff with Extended Haft

When you look at Shyla’s upgrades, there is a definite appeal to Full Sweep: adding an automatic Cleave 3 is fantastic – able to clear out a basic unit with ease OR deal good damage to a figure with more than one defense die. While we’ve talked about several different Cleave-oriented weapons in our post on Gaarkhan, there’s one weapon that outshines all of the rest: the Electrostaff.

Made available in the Grand Inquisitor Villain Pack, this weapon is one of the most expensive Tier 3 weapons you can purchase. With an impressive Red-Green-Blue attack pool and the ability to surge for 2 Damage, your direct damage is incredible. However, when you declare an attack with the Electrostaff, you get to either add Reach OR Cleave 2 to the attack results – this gives you an automatic Cleave 5! We’ve chosen to add the Extended Haft (which you can put on your Duelist’s Blade until you get to Tier 3), which will add an automatic Pierce 1 if you don’t have any targets to Cleave, but otherwise gives you Reach AND Cleave 2 from your attacks.

Another great thing about the Electrostaff is that it has three attack dice, which means you can get better use out of the Swords Dance upgrade. This upgrade gives you the ability to perform a free attack, but comes at the cost of one die from your attack pool. While Shyla can get three attack dice from the Ryyk Blades as well (which allows you to surge for Cleave 2), the die pool from that weapon would only be a Green-Blue (vs. a Red-Green from the Electrostaff). Shyla could also get three attack dice from the Force Pike (which would give you Reach), and the attack would get a decent (though unreliable) attack pool (Red-Yellow). While the Force Pike isn’t a bad weapon, it doesn’t have the options of the Electrostaff and it’s nearly the same price. Ergo, we choose the Electrostaff.

Besides Swords Dance and Full Sweep, we’ve chosen to focus entirely on offense and purchased All-Out Attack and Proximity Strike. Since the Electrostaff has both a Red die AND a Blue die, it’s good to be able to reroll one of your die (makes it hard for you to get Damage 1 on either of those dice) – Proximity Strike gives not only this reroll, but also grants a reroll of a defense die – perfect for ignoring a Block 3 result OR a Dodge result. All-Out Attack allows you to get a free Damage 1 to your attack (at the cost of -1 Surge). This upgrade is much better when you have very little Surge being generated (which this attack pool generally lacks). Even if you do generate 2 Surge, it basically becomes a free “surge for Damage 1,” which isn’t bad (especially for a 1XP upgrade).

Upgrades to purchase – 10 XP: All-Out Attack (1), Proximity Strike (2), Swords Dance (3), Full Sweep (4)

End-Game Weapon #2 – Tactical Build: Duelist’s Blade with Focusing Beam and DH-17 with Charged Ammo Pack and Plasma Cell

Like we talked about in our post on Verena Talos, most characters are not rewarded for having weapons of different weapon types. Some other characters (such as Fenn and Drokkatta) have upgrades that give them static attack results that ignore the weapon type (e.g. can be used with a blaster or a melee weapon). Shyla doesn’t have any of those upgrades. So this begs the question:

Why split your focus between two different kinds of weapons?

The answer is pretty simple: because having a gun makes you more flexible. While Shyla’s Mandolorian Whip upgrade can force non-adjacent hostile figures to get close to her, Shyla needs to move towards figures in order to carve them up. While this isn’t a bad thing, it often means that she needs to spend time moving instead of attacking. This need not be the case. With a gun in hand, Shyla can rely on some of her more tactical upgrades to gain movement and still attack twice (perhaps with a melee weapon, perhaps not).

I debated for a long time about what ranged weapon to give her, but the melee weapon was obvious: Shyla has a great starter weapon – keep it. While a Yellow-Green attack pool isn’t the best attack type, her weapon CAN be a Red-Green (which is a very good attack type) and it can turn almost all surge that it generates into Damage or Pierce. With a reliable output of Damage 3-4, you’re looking at being able to do damage with your attack against anyone that comes your way. If the target has been properly softened, you don’t need to do a lot of damage in order to kill them. So how can we do that…

We begin by looking at two very excellent (though incredibly tactical) upgrades: Smoke Bombs and the Remote Detonator. If Shyla is attacking a White die figure, I recommend she uses the Smoke Bombs on the target to apply Weaken – this is particularly good against enemies with Cunning, as it removes the Evade before it can trigger an additional Block. Against a Black die, you’ll probably want to become Hidden instead, since the Black die doesn’t Evade very often. With the Remote Detonator, you can do a Green die worth of damage (1-2 expected) to a target BEFORE you attack them, which makes it more likely that you’ll be able to carve them up with your starter weapon.

Finally, if you really want to soften someone up, you might want to consider shooting them. J As I said before, it took me a long time to decide which blaster to pick up and while the EE-3 is a fantastically reliable weapon, I figured you would benefit from something with a higher potential damage output and a shorter range (to coincide with the Remote Detonator and the Mandolorian Whip). We’ve talked about the DH-17 twice in our post on Jyn, but the short version is this: the DH-17 is guaranteed to hit at least 3 Accuracy so long as it gets 1 Surge past your opponent’s defense: if you lead off with the Smoke Bombs, that’s easy. When you shoot, you’ll not only get a static Pierce 1 from the Plasma Cell, but you can turn any surge you get into Damage 1 + Pierce 1 or just Damage 1. The maximum result you’ll get is Damage 5 + Pierce 2 with Accuracy 3-5.

To polish off this build, we take both Responsiveness and Deadly Grace. Not only can this give us 3 free movement points at the beginning of our turn, but we also increase our Endurance (which allows us to move even further without spending actions. If we don’t need as much movement, we can always use Responsiveness to recover Strain – perfect for triggering the Mandolorian Whip if we need it and are strained out.

Upgrades to purchase – 10 XP: Responsiveness (1), Smoke Bombs (2), Remote Detonator (3), Deadly Grace (4)

End-Game Weapon #3 – Strain And Recover: Vibrosword with Focusing Beam and Balanced Hilt

While playing with a gun is fun and while cleaving into people is really fun, Shyla is a “slasher” – she’s really good at carving people up. So, what kind of build to you make for someone that you want to deal TONS of damage? We recently talked about the Polearm with Vibrogenerator and cited it as one of the best overall melee weapons you can use. I know what you’re wondering:

Why not talk about the Polearm with Vibrogenerator again?

The answer is simple:

Because that would be boring.

To be clear, you can do a lot of damage with the Polearm with Vibrogenerator – just read our previous post for why that is. Instead, we’re going to talk about a different weapon: the Vibrosword. We’ve talked about this weapon in two other posts, both of which passed on the Balanced Hilt (for Diala we took the Energized Hilt and for Gaarkhan we took the Extended Haft). So what is it about this weapon that we seem to like so much?

The Vibrosword has a few benefits over other weapons (like the Polearm or even the Electrostaff we viewed previously):

·         The Vibrosword is available at Tier 1, allowing you to get it early (as opposed to waiting). This is a minor benefit, as your Duelist’s Blade is a perfectly good weapon (as we saw in the previous build).

·         The Vibrosword gives you two mod slots, giving you greater flexibility in how you want to build your weapon (like being able to get Reach from the Extended Haft AND something else).

·         The Green-Blue provides decent damage and surge potential (which is good for a weapon that can surge for Damage 2).

While there are also disadvantages (like the fact that it only has two dice in its attack pool), the biggest advantage (and what sets it apart from other weapons) is the fact that you can STRAIN to increase the Pierce of your attack. We talked in our post on Gaarkhan that this unique ability for the Vibrosword enabled him to not need to purchase his Vicious Strike ability since they effectively do the same thing.

For Shyla, straining for additional Pierce is compensated for nicely by both her Responsiveness upgrade and by her Respite ability – giving you two free Strain recoveries every activation. Even if you don’t rest, you can add Pierce 1-2 (depending on whether you use the Mandolorian Whip ability), which is as good as having a free Pierce 1 from a weapon. With 1-2 Pierce in the bag, you’re guaranteed to break through the worst Black die and can trigger Full Sweep. If you’re fighting a White die, you can tap your Focusing Beam and use one of your Strain to remove a Dodge result OR take away whatever Block result came on the die (or from an Evade if your target has Cunning).

While this is all fantastic, the one thing that the Vibrosword doesn’t do is reliably generate surge. To compensate for this, we’ve chosen the Balanced Hilt. While it only benefits you once per turn, you’ll be happy you have it if you manage to not get a single surge in your attack pool. We have taken Proximity Strike to round out the upgrades, which will give you a reroll if you want it, but even then, you’re not guaranteed to get good results out of the Blue or Green as far as surge is concerned. While you may not need the Balanced Hilt to trigger damage, you can always use it to recover 1 Strain, queueing up a more powerful turn next round.

Upgrades to purchase – 11 XP: Responsiveness (1), Proximity Strike (2), Full Sweep (4), Deadly Grace (4)

Shyla in the Skirmish Game

Shyla Varad is a powerhouse – for only 8 points, she has a Green-Green-Yellow attack pool and the ability to turn most of her Surge into Damage/Pierce/Cleave 2, which is BONKERS! On defense, she’s got a Black die with a free Evade (similar to Verena, who we talked about a few weeks ago) and a whopping 12 health (with a free Recover 1 at the start of each turn if she of her activations), which means your opponents will need to press their attack very quickly and very hard to defeat her. Shyla is straight-forward to use and with both Hunter and Brawler synergies, you can run her with bounty hunters (Trandoshans, Onar, Vinto, Bossk, and Clawdite Shapeshifters are good choices) or with brawlers (Bossk/Trandoshans from the previous list, but also Tuskens, Gamorreans, and Wampas). Whatever army you want to run, Shyla will take up 20% of your cash and provide a huge boon to your list.

In our next post, we’ll be starting the final group in our series of character reviews with the “tank” class. Our first character is Biv Bodhrick, one of my favorite characters and one of the hardest characters to kill. Until next time, happy gaming!

IP Class Deck Review: Inspiring Leadership

Well, we took last Monday off because . . . life. Today, we move from the Imperial Class decks provided in the Core Set to those provided in the Expansion sets. I’ve decided to start off with the Class deck provided in the Twin Shadows expansion: Inspiring Leadership.

Inspiring Leadership: Kings and Pawns

The Core Set provides an handful of Leader figures – Darth Vader, General Weiss, and Imperial Officers. The irony, of course, is that Twin Shadows only has one Leader to choose from (Kayn Somos), so it would probably be better thematically in the Core Set. Regardless of why it appears in Twin Shadows, Inspiring Leadership allows your Leaders to do more for your team than they normally do (the quintessential examples are Field Officer, Field General, and Lead By Example) – though these boosts tend to be available to select non-Leader groups too. Some of the upgrades, however, make your regular units more dangerous (like Optimal Tactics) or more resilient (like Press On). In the end, your focus will either be to make either your Leaders or your “other units” better. Without further ado, let’s dig into it.

End-Game Build #1 – Maximum Free Actions: Field Officer, Strategic Planning, Field General, Lead By Example

One of the things that Inspiring Leadership does very well is grant free actions. With Field Officer as a starting upgrade, you can transfer an action from a Leader/Guardian/Trooper to enable a friendly figure to perform a move. With its bigger cousin Field General, you can give some of your regular Trooper/Guardian units (Stormtrooper, Snowtrooper, Bespin Wing Guard, Gamorrean Guard) the ability to give additional movement/attacking actions to a better unit. While this doesn’t innately count as a free action, you can make it a fully free action by taking Lead By Example.

To best use these three upgrades, I recommend that you place any units that plan on using this upgrade (let’s say that two Stormtrooper squads have been given Field Officer and Field General and that there is an Imperial Officer on the table as well) in a daisy chain, with one of the figures standing near a deployment point (either where a reserved unit to arrive or one of your standard deployment points that’s not near the enemy). You are then able to give the newly-arrived unit a great amount of movement WITHOUT SPENDING A MOVE ACTION! Each of these guys will be able to also perform a move (though note that with Field General you could also allow the guy to attack – and you can then follow up and attack as well), which allows you to keep pace OR keep running away if you’re trying to preserve the last member of an expensive squad.

The only other upgrade we’ve chosen is Strategic Planning, which is a great way to ensure that your good, average-cost units get maximum time in the sun. Let’s say that you have a Regular Stormtrooper unit (either by your own choice OR because the mission gave them to you) and the unit is down to a single figure. This isn’t going to be much help to you, as a single Stormtrooper isn’t going to do a lot of damage. Instead, he can use his activation to ready another unit – let’s say a Riot Trooper squad that has already been activated.

Best IP Units:

·         Stormtrooper (Core) – When you have three options for where to use your Field Officer or Field General skill, life is good. You can be flexible across the battlefield AND you can keep your units split up to ensure the card doesn’t get removed (which is often costly to replace). Stormtroopers also don’t tend to be too dangerous in later missions, so using them to get more expensive and powerful units into position is amazing. I will note that you can put multiple attachments on the same unit, so a single Stormtrooper unit COULD take both Field Officer AND Field General – opening up tons of options for back-to-back moving and attack with another figure (effectively giving a free activation to someone you like).

·         E-Web Engineer (Core) – While you can give Field General to these guys, I recommend these guys for a more flexible purpose. As we’ve said in a previous post, E-Webs play defense and in that vein, if you have an E-Web already in position (e.g. you don’t want to move him) AND you can’t shoot at someone, you want to be able to give his turn to someone else. Enter Strategic Planning. Once your opponent comes within range, you want to be able to give him extra attacks via Field General to maximize on all that firepower. Protecting this guy will be the primary goal of any commander, however, as the relatively low health of these guys makes it hard for them to stay on table very long.

·         Snowtrooper (Return to Hoth) – Though slightly more expensive than Stormtroopers, these guys are more resilient and can heal Troopers around them. While not a stellar candidate for Field General (as their attack is aweful), these guys make great Field Officers (being able to move along with an ally AND healing in the same turn is extraordinary).

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – Let me begin by saying that I don’t recommend these guys hold either the Field General or the Field Officer upgrades (though they can definitely benefit from both). Instead, I provide them here because they’re cheap and can be readied by pretty much any unit that you could might choose to exhaust for Strategic Planning. Additionally, their defense abilities also make them excellent units to exhaust with Strategic Planning to ready someone else (as they’ll probably survive whatever pounding they get – especially if backed up by Snowtroopers).

·         Elite Imperial Officer (Core) – So what good is taking someone who already has the equivalent of Field General? TONS! According to the FAQ, the Field General upgrade and the existing Executive Order ability are different unique abilities, so you can spend both of your actions moving people or telling people to shoot! If an Elite Imperial Officer is given Field General, not only can he call in a friendly unit to shoot twice during his turn (“Take two E-Web shots in the face, you Rebel Scum!”), but he is then allowed to take two shots of his own – focusing himself (hopefully) with the first shot, and then stunning the target with his second shot. Ouch!

End-Game Build #2 – Defensive Build: Field Officer, Supervisory Agent, Press On, Noble Sacrifice, Field General, Imperial Dedication

While gaining extra actions is incredible, Inspiring Leadership has several defensive tricks as well. At the forefront of these abilities is Imperial Dedication, which allows you to choose a friendly, adjacent figure who could have been the target and make him the target instead. If you direct damage towards a Leader or Guardian, you can trigger Noble Sacrifice if they die – perfect for during a “defeat” to a really powerful offensive round. To go along with these two upgrades, we’ve chosen to take the dual-pairing of Field Officer/Field General that we’ve seen already, as well as the Supervisory Agent and Press On upgrades, which allow you to get a free regular Imperial Officer (useful) and heal 1 damage at the end of each round on a regular Imperial deployment card – perfect for staying alive just a little bit longer.

Best IP Units:

·         Imperial Officer (Core) – We’ve already talked about the utility of giving Field Officer or Field General to one of these guys, but the pairing of Supervisory Agent and Noble Sacrifice is amazing. By taking a Regular Imperial Officer as one of your open groups, you can play him (once per mission) without paying his cost and then when he does, he can Focus up to 5 figures who can see him. This is a great way to grant Focus to Massive units as well as any Guardian units who are nearby. With Imperial Dedication, Rebel Heroes who try to avoid the rerollable White die of these officers won’t be able to attack other units, getting use out of Noble Sacrifice faster (and the cost of redeploying these guys is minimal).

·         Royal Guard (Core) – While Imperial Officers make great targets for Imperial Dedication, the best units to utilize Imperial Dedication for the purpose of deflecting damage towards someone else is a Royal Guard. Since a Royal Guard doesn’t benefit from the free Block he provides to non-Guardian, adjacent, friendly figures, you want the person standing next to you to be the target of the attack. Since Royal Guards have the Guardian keyword, they can take both Field Officer and Field General, which makes them very flexible support units (and when one of them dies, they can trigger Noble Sacrifice).

·         Bespin Wing Guard (Bespin Gambit) – Bespin Wing Guard also get good mileage out of Imperial Dedication, as they can force the attack to target an adjacent, friendly figure, which triggers the Wing Guard’s Keep The Peace ability. Wing Guard also have the advantage of having three figures in the squad, which means you can provide the potential for Imperial Dedication across the board, remaining flexible to use it wherever you need.

·         Stormtrooper (Core) – Most of the upgrades we’ve chosen won’t apply to these guys, but in order to use most of the other units effectively, you need someone who isn’t a Guardian (Bespin Wing Guard and Royal Guards require non-Guardian units to be the target of an attack). Stormtroopers are not very healthy, but they have a decent defense and you get a lot of them, which allows you to redeploy them easily (so long as you can keep one of them alive). We’ve already talked about how they make great carriers for the Field Officer and Field General abilities, which will be helpful if they’re adjacent to a Bespin Wing Guard or Royal Guard.

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – While the other Guardians we’ve talked about before are good at deflecting damage away from themselves towards other figures, Riot Troopers are the Guardians you want to absorb damage. This uses the same strategy we talked about with Imperial Officers above, using Imperial Dedication to force attacks against the high-defense Riot Troopers and just-so-happening to Focus a bunch of people when one of them dies. When a Riot Troopers becomes Focused, he rolls a Red-Green-Blue (with the ability to turn just about every Surge into damage).

End-Game Build #3 – Heavy Fire: Field Officer, Supervisory Agent, Noble Sacrifice, Strategic Planning, Optimal Tactics

Let’s be honest: with any Imperial Class deck, we want to be able to blow stuff up. Inspiring Leadership certainly has some neat tricks it can play, but thankfully it also has options for straight-up offense. The core of this strategy is centered around Optimal Tactics, which gives a static Damage 1 bonus to any Imperial attacks where the attacker is within 3 spaces of a friendly Leader AND a free reroll of one die in the attack pool as well. To make sure we get lots of Leaders on the board (though you may only need 1-2 depending on the scenario), we’ve decided to take Supervisory Agent, which once again allows us to get a free Imperial Officer on the board (he just takes up one of our open groups). If you’re looking for best offensive firepower, it’s hard to argue with Noble Sacrifice (up to 5 Focuses is awesome) and Strategic Planning (take a unit who isn’t doing much and ready a unit that’s going to do more that’s already gone this round).

If you’re getting a free reroll out of the bargain, you want to focus on getting Red-die units – that Damage 1 face is awful, so you want to get a different result as often as you can. This can make Red-die figures much more powerful, though don’t underestimate the power of reroll Green die as well (if you can surge for Damage 2).

Best IP Units:

·         Imperial Officer (Core) – Obviously, whenever you take Supervisory Agent, you want to take an Imperial Officer. For this build in particular, we need Leaders on the board – and who better to pick than cowering Imperial Officers?

·         Elite Jawa Scavenger (Jawa Scavenger Villain Pack) – At only 1 point more expensive than an Imperial Officer, an Elite Jawa Scavenger is an excellent bargain: he’s got a static Block 1 (if he applies a -1 Evade penalty), makes friendly Droids more reliable/useful, and has a 50% chance of increasing your Threat by 1 each time he shoots. All told, he’s an annoying little chap and an excellent bargain.

·         Elite Clawdite Shapeshifter (Heart of the Empire) – Clawdites are cheap (Regulars cost 4, Elites cost 6) and they have great attack pools. If you’re looking to do damage, you get some great benefits out of the static Damage 1 and rerollable Red die (or your choice of the Green/Blue if you’re in Scout form). What’s more, since Elite Clawdites cost 6 points, you can tap them to ready one of your other 2-6 cost units with Strategic Planning.

·         Gamorrean Guard (Jabba’s Realm) – Coming in a 6 points, Gamorrean Guards pack in a lot of punch – Red-Red attack pool with Reach is awesome. What is remarkably less awesome is the -1 Damage penalty they suffer from and the ability to reroll an attack die at the loss of 1 Strain (which is killer in the Campaign, since you need to take it as damage). Enter Optimal Tactics: the -1 Damage penalty is mitigated nicely by the static Damage 1, giving Gamorreans the full weight and power of their Red-Red combo. Want that reroll? You got it with the Optimal Tactics upgrade and without damaging yourself. Since they’re 6 points, you can ready them with Strategic Planning by exhausting a unit you don’t want to use (a lone Stormtrooper who’s just trying to stay alive, perhaps).

·         Riot Trooper (Heart of the Empire) – Yeah, these guy show up a lot – they do a lot of damage, they’re really painful to fight, they’re hard to kill, AND they can really benefit from that reroll. With the ability to reroll either the Red or the Blue, they reliably do 4 Damage each time they attack (which can crack a Black easily). Not much else to say about these guys.

In our next post, we’ll be moving on from Twin Shadows to talk about one of my favorite decks: Nemeses. While we’ve caged all of our discussions heretofore to non-Villain units that work well in each deck, we’ll be including some big, bad, ugly villain units in the next post. Until next time, happy gaming!